Who Knows?

             You’re so pathetic. It’s a compliment. Really. Let's face it. If someone calls me pathetic, I get the urge to gauge their eyeballs out so they can see for themselves just how pathetic I am. I am not pathetic. Or at least in today’s terms I’m not. And yet, the word “pathetic” in argumentative rhetorical language is actually quite good. It means you manage to invoke certain emotions in other people by the successful use of pathos. Sure, pathos should not be used in the beginning of an argument, but they make for drastic changes in the end.

            Belief is key in pathos. “To stir an emotion, use what your audience has experienced and what it expects to happen.” By appealing to experience, what the audience has felt and is close to, you are heightening the amount of emotion that you can arouse. People react more to things that they relate to. If I were trying to get my friend mad at a certain person, it would be preferable if I didn’t just rant and bicker about how annoying the latter is. Rather, it would be ideal if I could come up with something that my friend could relate to:

            Me: She’s an awful person.

            Friend: Stop being so over-dramatic.

            Me: What? She came up to me during lunch and told be that I was retarded and that I was never going to get anywhere in life.

            Let’s say my friend happens to have a brother who suffers from a severe mental disorder and ergo hates the word “retarted” and anyone who looks down on someone because of such a disease. By saying this, I am appealing to her experience and a cause that is very close to her heart, and so that would be a successful way of riling her up. Just for the sake of clarifying, I would like to say that I hate the word that denotes mental slowness and the example was just a means to make a point.

            Storytelling is also another way that gives the audience a “virtual experience”, and if done well, makes an emotional impact almost as if they where in the actual story. Volume control is also important. It’s better to begin quietly and then turn up the volume almost as if you’re revved up and the topic of your argument is reaching its peak. It slowly builds to make your escalation towards emotion more believable and touching. If you begin outright screaming, then you won’t be able to make emphasis on the important aspects of your speech because everything else is said in the same strong, screaming tone. That’s fine and all, but in small doses. Nobody wants to listen to your ear-bleeding vocal chords pounding words into the fragile air. People are sensitive. People get distracted. If you talk constantly in the same high volume, don’t be surprised if everyone tunes out after the first five minutes.

            Simple speech is also a necessity. Less is more. If my boyfriend (which I don’t have, but that’s beside the point) were to mess up in some way and hurt me, screeching at him, bantering about his carelessness, and ranting in an endless monologue would not help my case. If anything, it would just annoy him or make him tune me out. If I were to, on the other hand, react in a simpler way and subtly demonstrate the pain he caused me, that would invoke his pity and emotion even more:

            Him: What’s the matter?

            Me: I just can’t believe you did that.

            Him: I’m sorry.

            Me: Me too. (And then let a tear gracefully graze my countenance, along with disbelief and pain, of course).

            Is so much more effective than:

            Him: What’s the matter?

            Me: What’s the matter?? I can’t believe you dare even ask that. Do you know how much pain you’ve caused me? Do you understand the meaning of                             trust? Do you? Because it seems to me that you don’t even know the                          meaning of the word. I hope you’re happy.

            Which one makes you actually feel bad for me? The first one. The second one is just downright annoying. Less is more and “plain speaking is more pathetic.” Also, when trying to convince someone to act, always aim for their anger, usually inspired by a sense of belittlement. Patriotism also attaches a choice to the audience’s sense of group identity, and these two are key emotions if you want the audience to take action. Emulation and not warning your audience about the emotion you want them to feel (unannounced emotion) is crucial. Although the former seemed to be quite obvious. Why would you tell someone you want to anger that you will make him or her feel anger? I just don’t see the logic. And if you were to do such a stupid thing and tell a person that you’re going to make them sob with the story you are about to tell them, they will resist that emotion even more. So, just use some common sense and don’t do it.

            Pathos is something we use every day. We might not know it, or we might not even do it intentionally, but we do. We manipulate. Well, technically, when you think about it, this book’s topic is basically the art of manipulation. Yes,  it  teaches the art of educated manipulation, albeit, with all its fancy Aristotle terms of ethos, pathos, and logos, but still. And I love it. Maybe I’m just naturally evil. Maybe I’m planning on rounding up masses to follow me as I lead the world into chaos and I become Queen of Earth after the upcoming apocalypse. Who knows.